Wood Brothers looking for lasting success

This is the third in a series documenting the top 14 NASCAR Winston Cup teams of 2002. The top 14 teams represent the Top 25 drivers in 2002.

	Effort has not been in short supply for Len (right) and Eddie Wood. Credit: Autostock

STUART, Va. -- The Wood Brothers Racing team can only hope in 2003 that more money from sponsor Motorcraft and the input of veteran driver Ricky Rudd can improve the 2002 status of their No. 21 Fords.

The family run team ended the season as only the third-best single-car team in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, lagging behind PPI Motorsports and Jasper Motorsports.

Quick start, slow finish

For the second straight season, young driver Elliott Sadler burst out of the blocks like a rampant firehorse, but he ended the campaign slinking once again toward the mid-20s in the standings.

The biggest difference between 2001 and 2002 was that Sadler did not win a race, as he did at Bristol Motor Speedway in March 2001.

Sadler did score two second-place finishes, but both came in the first five races of the season. This only served to whet the team's appetite for additional success, which, through a variety of arcane circumstances, never arrived.

As much as both Sadler and the Wood Brothers team protested otherwise, the team's fortunes seemed to go even further south when Sadler began negotiating a release from his contract to seek other employment.

ALSO  •  Rudd tests with Wood Bros.    YEAR IN REVIEW  •  Hendrick Motorsports  •  Bill Davis Racing

The team struggled through a 19-race stretch to the season's final event in Miami in which his best finishes were a pair of 10th-place efforts, with 11 other results outside the top-20.

A ninth-place finish in the season finale was small consolation for the long-suffering Wood Brothers, which have only two victories in the past 10 seasons.

One for you, one for me

	Credit: Autostock

Ironically, in the end the Woods and Robert Yates Racing effected a driver swap after Sadler spent months denying that such a thing was going to occur.

Sadler will now have no choice but to produce in what is arguably one of the top-five rides in the series.

Prior to the Winston Cup Awards Ceremony in early December, the Woods had already tested no less than three times with Rudd, preparing for 2003 and already taking advantage of Motorcraft's additional support for research and development.